


in the aftermath

by Kirstein_and_Arlert



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirstein_and_Arlert/pseuds/Kirstein_and_Arlert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier)</p><p>Clint finds out what happened to SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> For notoriousreign. This might turn into something bigger.

“Wake up, Barton.”

 

Clint wakes up slowly, too slowly. The room is stuffy because the windows have been closed for days, and the sunlight is still streaming in the windows. So it’s almost midday. That means he’s been asleep for… six hours, maybe?

 

And there’s a woman standing over him with a duffel bag slung across her shoulder.

 

He expects it to be Tasha. She’s the only one who knows about this safehouse, about him hiding out here. It takes him until his eyes adjust to the sunlight to realise that it isn’t Tasha standing over him.

 

One of Tasha’s friends, then. He recognises her from a couple of debriefings – the friend with the long blonde hair and wicked, wicked smile. She’s not smiling now, though. She’s frowning and keeps looking out the window as he untangles himself from the sheets. Her hair is stringy and dirty, pulled back in a messy ponytail. There’s no sign of any SHIELD gear; the clothes are too well worn, the body armour isn’t standard issue. She doesn’t look like she’s working for SHIELD right now, so she’s either quit, gone rogue, or—

 

“What happened?” Clint asks, because something bad has happened. He can feel it in the tension coming off this woman’s body – what’s her name? Betty?  No. Barbie? No, but someone had called her it as a joke once. Bobbi? Natasha wouldn’t send someone he doesn’t know after him unless something bad is happening. Unless she can’t come herself.

 

“SHIELD fell. Well, it didn’t really fall. More like Fury and Tasha and some other people blew it up a few days ago. Tasha broke into my apartment, stole some of my tech, then contacted me and sent me to track you down, in case you didn’t know. I don’t know how you couldn’t know. It’s on the internet. _Everything’s_  on the internet. Our names, our covers, our _bank details_ , even…”

 

Clint tunes her out. She’s panicking, probably has been for a few days, but it’s only coming out now. Clint knows the feeling, and he doesn’t want to relive it through her. He takes the TV off of mute and flicks through the channels – French, Spanish, Russian; no matter what language he hears, they’re all telling the same story. The footage is the same and he vaguely recognises some of the words. He knows ‘infiltration’ in more languages than he knows how to ask where the bathroom is. SHIELD was infiltrated by… HYDRA from the very beginning, he manages to puzzle out from one of the Spanish channels.

 

It takes a moment for that to sink in. All of his work has been for HYDRA.

 

It’s gone, everything’s gone. And everything’s out there. Do they know about Barney? About Trick Shot and the Swordsman and how Barney became Trickshot? Probably. If they posted everything, that will be part of the everything. Which means no safehouses, none of his usual bank accounts, none of his friends, none of the people he’s worked with. No running back to the circus, which had always been his old back-up plan.

 

Nothing from his life – his old life – can be touched, Clint realises, and for a second it’s freeing, the way it always is. And then it’s terrifying. He has no money, Tasha isn’t coming, and a quick check of his comms equipment confirms that there’s no one listening for transmissions. He’s on his own – they’re on their own, Clint amends, glancing back at Bobbi.

 

Bobbi is still standing by the window, staring out of it. She isn’t talking now. She’s fidgeting with the strap of her bag, and she has the hyper-alert look of someone who hasn’t slept for days. Clint knows that look, has spent months staring at the same expression in the mirror.

 

Clint’s spent his whole life preparing for the times when his life explodes. His parents. Swordsman. Trick Shot. Barney. Even in the military, he was ready to go at all times. This is the one time that absolutely _everything_  has gone up in flames, and he has no back-up plan to speak of. Tasha knows that, and he wonders if this is her way of giving him one.

 

Clint doesn’t waste any time grabbing his own duffel bag, packing as much as he can into it – t-shirts, pants, a few jackets, a couple of the clean towels. The bow is small enough to hide, and quivers are common enough around here that no one’s going to look twice. He has a car under a new false ID nearby, so it won’t be on any of SHIELD’s files. He has transport. So they’ll drive. Clint with some woman he barely knows in the passenger seat. It isn’t much of a plan, but it’s all he’s got. A bad plan, a car, and a complete stranger sent by his best friend.

 

The TV is still talking about how HYDRA was controlling SHIELD all along, how Nick Fury is dead, how the past crimes of agents are being exposed, how the new and old identities of people thought long dead are coming out. Clint ignores it.

 

“Bobbi,” he says, holding up the car keys. She blinks at him, smiling when she realises what he’s holding. Another time, he’d say something like,  _I’ve got a fast car, an unlogged cover, and nowhere to be_. This time he just says, “Are you coming?”


End file.
